In a Tuesday release, BreitBurn Energy Partners (NASDAQ:BBEP) agrees to purchase oil and natural gas assets in the Permian Basin at a combined price of $190 million, from CrownRock and Lynden USA. The acquisitions are subject to the usual closing conditions and purchase price adjustments, and will be funded with borrowings under the Partnerships existing bank credit facility. The transactions should close in 2012.

Eni, the Milano-based oil company, made the largest find in its history of exploration last year — a huge discovery in Mozambique — and now competing oil firms such a Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDSA)(NYSE:RDSB) and Exxon Mobil Corporation are scrambling to get into the action. An Eni inside source said to Reuters, that “It was clear from the start it was a major discovery that changed the ball game,” who went to to say that “Eni is in early talks with a few large players like Shell and Exxon, and, interestingly, a few large LNG buyers that could cover production and help speed final investment decisions.”

Cobalt International Energy (NYSE:CIE) said in a Tuesday release that it has initiated a registered underwritten public offering of $1.2 billion aggregate principal amount of its convertible senior notes due 2019. The underwriters of this offering have an option, which is exercisable within 13 days, to buy up to an additional $180 million aggregate principal amount of the notes from Cobalt on the same terms and conditions to cover any over-allotments. The notes will be Cobalt’s senior unsecured obligations, and interest will be payable semi-annually in arrears on June 1st and December 1st of each year, starting on June 1, 2013. The notes will mature on December 1, 2019, unless prior to that date repurchased or converted in a manner according to their terms.

Texas County Court at Law Judge Jack Sinz has temporarily stopped construction of the southern section of the contentious Keystone XL pipeline, subsequent to a landowner in the state bringing a lawsuit against TransCanada Corporation (NYSE:TRP), which alleges that it had lied about the nature of the project. Michael Bishop won a two-week restraining order that forces the pipeline major to cease work on the section of the pipeline which crosses his property in Nacogdoches County, lying about 100 miles northeast of Houston. Construction is stopped until a hearing scheduled for December 19th.